I support States’ Rights, as long as the rights of a state does not infringe on the rights of an individual. Women have the right to self-determination and no state should try to deny or hinder this right.

CA-Oxonian: "As always, mores founded on religious belief are inimical to rational thinking and reasonable action".
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Obviously, abortion is the 'reasonable action" he has in mind.
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Let us accommodate Mr CA-Oxonian and have a look at what definitely non-religious, even anti-religious believer has to say about this. Enters Richard Dawkins, The Shrieking Atheist:
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[quote] “With respect to those meanings of ‘human’ that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig.”[unquote]

Telling a society that they must wholly accept a constitutional right to end an unborn life is bound to give rise to major opposition. Even Norma McCorvey, the original plaintiff in RvW, is repulsed by abortion and actively promotes pro-life causes. The pro abortion forces have created many powerful enemies due to their tactics and rhetoric.

You are confused: Sempervirens speaks about pro-abortion forces making enemies for themselves, you imply that pro-life (meaning anti-abortion) people can be send to prison. What is it your intended to say?

People living outside the USA imagine they "know" the country based on the wholly unrealistic views provided by Hollywood through countless movies and TV shows. The reality is quite different. Large swathes of the USA are nearly medieval in outlook, quite unlike the situation in any modern country. It's not surprising, therefore, that the people of the USA have difficulty in coping with post-Enlightenment concepts of liberty (as per J S Mill). The abortion fracas is merely one consequence of the fact that this is a highly conservative, relatively uneducated, and rather intolerant society that finds modern conceptions of civil life to be deeply uncomfortable. Ironically, many Americans would welcome greater clerical influence on the formation and implementation of laws - a situation not unlike that in many strict Islamic countries. As always, mores founded on religious belief are inimical to rational thinking and reasonable action.

It is more interesting to notice that many european countries have managed to make abortion laws there is a compromise but good enough compromise that abortion have not been a political issue for decades.
Seems to me, that USA is instead having two extreme viewpoints fighting against each other in a winner takes all strategy

You are talking like a fool. I have visited every state over many decades and lived in many parts of the country. The "medieval" America of which you bray does not exist.

People are generally tolerant, educated and open-minded. It is just that some of them are not into bigtime killing. And, that is what abortion involves: death, death and more death.

Those who oppose abortion seem to have, regardless of whether they dwell in Manhattan, Kansas or Manhattan, NY, greater imagination than those on the other side of this issue. They can imagine the life of a new child, now maturing within the mother. They can imagine -- and THIS is the crucial difference -- something beyond their own egos as a guide to moral behavior. That "something" is a sense of shared community and it crosses religious and secular lines.

Post-Enlightenment concepts (I can't believe you dredge up someone as mouldy as J.S. Mill!) also brought us communsim, Fascism and National Socialism. There was a great deal to be said for an ethical system that limited what the individual could do and stressed community rather than a Nietzche-like Will to Power (= SELF.)

This is a hugely diverse country, one in which thoughtful, sensitive, moral and informed individuals can be found on every square mile. I expect, from your jejune tone, that you are a college sophomore.

If abortion only involves "death, death, and more death", then what is involved when somebody removes an appendix? What is involved in the meat trade?

I have never understood how people who eat meat can consider themselves "pro-life". The meat industry truly does involve only "death, death, and more death," but with much less controversy. While I disagree with those vegetarians who oppose abortion, at least I can understand and respect their positions.

OK, A. Andros, since you make a case that suggests that "death, death, and more death" is what pro-choice folks are after, let me point out the fact that the ones arguing like you are likely fine with "death, death, and more death" for those criminals that are on death row in these lands. So what does that render you? Are you now pro life, or pro life if it suits your needs? I'm not suggesting that we pardon all criminals that are on death row, but the death penalty by itself obviously hasn't succeeded in deterring criminals to commit their acts. Aside the fact (and I am aware that's for another discussion), it strikes me as awkward that a country like ours, that makes up 5% of the world population, has by far the highest percentage of inmates (I think it's around 25% of the world inmate population, butI can't readily state a source here).

I have opposed the death penalty for decades and written to governors urging them to commute death sentences. I would be delighted to see ALL criminals on death row have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment or some other more merciful sentence.

Our country does have a remarkably higher percentage of incarceration and I think we are far too harsh with criminal penalties. I also don't know what that has to do with abortion.

The quoted article seems to be from 2005, that is, there might be changes in some countries
But it is worth noticing, that USA and Britain seems to have more liberal abortion laws compared to most of Northern Europe

Thank you or the opportunity to refute two basic fallacies in the so-called 'pro-life' argumentation:
The argument saying that fetuses are 'unborn babies' is wrong and deceptive both factually and logically -
It's the equivalent of saying that I'm dead based on the fact that I'm a person, and eventually all people die, so I will die too, I.E. I'm dead...
But I'm not dead - I'm alive.
Similarly, many fetuses develop into babies, and are born eventually, but that doesn't mean that a fetus is a baby - it's not.
A fetus is a fetus.
So far for the pseudo logic, and as far as the facts go - a 3 months fetus has neither cognitive capabilities nor feelings, since its nervous system is not developed to a point enabling such things. Therefore, it is neither a 'baby' nor a 'person', and claiming it is one is wrong and deceptive.

As for the idea that a pregnancy is comparable to breast cancer, are you suggesting that women who have breast cancer should be forced to get a treatment or surgical operation against their will?
Or are you suggesting the opposite, that women who wish to get rid of a cancerous tumor removed from their breast should not be allowed to do so for some reason?

Like I said before: Nobody (not even you) has a right to know what's going on in another person's belly against that person's will, since what goes on in someone's belly is nobody's business but their own.
And naturally, nobody has the right to decide what to do with the content a woman's belly, because it's her belly and not theirs.

You can force a cow or a sow to procreate calves and piglets for your farm, but you cannot force a woman to procreate, because you don't own that woman: Nobody does or can own her - not even the government of Arakansastan and the Arakansastanian bigots and zealots who voted for this absurd and unfair law.

Stay out of other people's bellies, and mind your own business!

Little Rock can now claim the title of the Western World's new capital of bigotry - Congratulations!

Either the fetus is a member of the human race or it is not. The most objective way to determine species is DNA. The fetus DNA is, in structure, exactly the same as every single one of us except for variations caused during Meiosis II. If you wish to rely on self-generated definitions, no one can stop you. But, there is not a biologist alive that can tell a difference between the DNA of a fetus and that of a centennarian. Both are unmistakably fully human -- your lame opinions notwithstanding.

The question is not whether the woman can be treated for breast cancer against her will. The question is whether she can FORCE me to support her treatment against MY will. And, the answer is that she can and does. Our public health system takes my money and, through various levels of administration, uses it on behalf of her body. It is absolutely correct in doing this because we have moral obligations toward each other regardless of how we feel about "Our bodies, ourselves."

What is the ethical source for your statement that "No one has a right to know what is going on in another person's belly against their will?" We do all kinds of things to people's bodies against their will. In nearly all states, small children have their bodies penetrted with needles against their will in order to vaccinate them. We quarentine people 'against their will" for the general good. The nation even seizes the entire bodies of millions of men during wartime and puts them in the way of bloody dismemberment and, believe me, it is against their will. We take control of the bodies of young people and force them to attend school for twelve years "against their will." The list of instrusions into/and control of "our bodies, ourselves" is a long one and justified by both law and custom.

And, I AM minding my own business. The number of children born into the world affects the economy, our culture, our circle of friends, our day-to-day routine, how we live and who we are. All of this is society's business.

You are one of those solipsisic types who cannot move beyond yourself. It is YOUR body, YOUR baby, YOUR right to do as you wish and the effect of this on the rest of us is strictly YOUR business.

I don't think I am a zealot or a bigot. But, I also do not kill my own offspring or live in a miasmatic world of solipcistic selfishness.

To begin with, I am not a woman, which is why I don't defend my own body, my own baby, my right, etc, but the right of women to protect themselves, their body, their lives and their own business from dictates coming from power hungry individuals and groups who disrespect women.

Second, human DNA is a very common material that can be found in anything the human body produces, from saliva to dandruff, feces, blood, sweat, and tears... This is to say that the fact a human fetus contains human DNA doesn't make it a member of anything, and it certainly doesn't turn it into a human baby.
Similarly, the fact that a little girl has two ovaries doesn't turn her into a mature woman, and the fact that a statement has a meaning doesn't turn it into a true statement.

FYI, my kids don't go to school against their will - they love school, and even if they didn't, I'd still have the right to decide whether I want to send them to school, including to which school, or school them at home.
This is because children are not adults, and as such they need to have someone assume the responsibility for them, and as my children's father I'm responsible for them (and you're not, thankfully).

Again - a fetus is a woman's fetus, and as such she's responsible for it, and not you or the state of Arakansastan.

FYI, women are not children, and they're as mature and responsible as you are, and possibly even more, which is why you have no moral right to send them anywhere, penetrate their bodies in any way, or tell them in what circumstances they should procreate.
It sis solely their business and their decision.

My moral and ethical standards are based on respect to others, and not on some ancient mythical gobbledegook quoting a fictional omniscient and omnipotent deity that over the years happened to become a popular source for explanations of various natural phenomena, as well as a justification for a some abject crimes and aberrations including slavery, racism, and discrimination against women.

Brush up your biology. Human DNA is only present in homo sapiens sapiens. If you find it in "saliva, dandruff, feces, blood, sweat and tears" then it is from human saliva, human dandruff, human feces, human blood, human sweat and human tears. Human DNA = species homo sapiens sapines. No exceptions. None.

I'm glad your children love school. I congratulate you on not having them killed in utero.

No a fetus is not a "woman's fetus." Once again, you need to get up to speed in biology. During crossover (Meiosis II) the father's chromosomes combine with the mother's in exactly the same proportion. Genetically the child is "half" father.

As for your assertion that "it is solely their business" we will take that for what it is -- your assertion. Other peoople assert there are little green men on Mars. Maybe both of you are right -- but neither of you seems to have proof.

I don't know who the "omniscient and omnipotent deity" is about whom you speak. I don't believe I mentioned any deity, omnipotent or otherwise, so I am not sure why your bring this up.

An appendix also has human DNA. Is is murder to remove and kill somebody's appendix? People are not considered humans with rights because of their DNA. People are considered humans with rights because we have cognition, we have an understanding of life, we know who we are, we have identities. An appendix does not. A 3 month fetus does not.

Wrong. Roe V Wade protects abortion until the fetus is "VIABLE", meaning the lungs have at least developed and the fetus can breath on its own. The lungs don't even form until the 22-24th week. You really didn't read the court case did you? Idiot.

Only the first trimester is truly guaranteed to be free from state regulation. From the decision:

(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician. Pp. 163, 164.
(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health. Pp. 163, 164.
(c) For the stage subsequent to viability the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother. Pp. 163-164; 164-165."

Technical question, why the vocal and unanimous focus on heartbeats? The heart is but one organ in the human body. Renal function, cerebral activity, cell multiplication, gender differentiation are other functions indispensable to human life. So why heartbeats of all things?

Could it be that this (on purpose) calls on the old crackpot medieval notion that the heart is somehow the seat of emotions, or even the soul?

It's okay to hold beliefs, but absurd beliefs are not the best foundation for legislating people's lives.

Pro-lifers would like to protect the unborn from conception before the heartbeat. But being illegal, they're pushing the bounds by picking largely arbitrary points between conception and viability. If next they introduce the Lend a Hand Act that bans abortions after the 8th week when hands develop, they aren't doing so because they believe in some medieval notion of hands being the source of life.

Pro-lifers should oppose challenging Roe. The Supreme Court is still pro-choice. This is a case of politicians trying to introduce populist legislation, long-term goals of the pro-lifer movement be damned.
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Suppress the Ayn Randians long enough to get elected to the White House, replace pro-choice Supreme Court justices with pro-life ones, then we can overturn Dred Scott v... I mean Roe v. Wade.

I'm a man so I love coercing women into sleeping with me then getting an abortion which explains why men are as pro-choice as women. I tell the women that we can either pretend the pregnancy never happened and live happily ever after or she can have the kid and I'll resent her for the rest of my life. Usually she ends up resenting me for "forcing" her to get an abortion but clearly she had a choice. I'm glad you're on the side of us men.

Are you so unfortunate that nobody will come with you out of her own free will? In that case, its better you forced them for abortion.

Honestly, I don’t care whether one is pro-life or pro-choice. But what I do care is that pro lifers should not be allowed to LEGALLY deny choice of abortion to those who have no such fancy ideas and vice versa.

If you believe in pro-life lobby, please go and make as many as babies you want. If you are pro -choice, nobody and I repeat, nobody should be allowed to force you into having a child you never wanted.

I know yours was a banter, in the same spirit please ignore first paragraph about being unfortunate. I will hope that you have never coerced a woman for a date leave alone sleeping.

Have a nice day.

PS: I don’t dislike pro-lifers. Just that I can’t and will not support them in legally terrorising those who don’t endorse/subscribe to their views.

we want government in our lives when it comes to preventing murder. there is nothing hypocritical about a position that attempts to prevent murder. and imo the near deafening repetition of this talking point you make is an extremely unproductive and hateful way to carry on.

its dismissive of very genuinely held beliefs that honest good people have. and you're a bigot for your insistence on using it.

I'm sure people calling each other murderers or bigots on this forum perfectly and earnestly mean it.

However truth does not shoot both ways. Only one side is right.

By the fruit thou shalt know the tree; it is telling that one side should stoop so low as to suggest lying to the electorate: "Suppress the Ayn Randians long enough to get elected to the White House, replace pro-choice Supreme Court justices with pro-life ones, then we can overturn Dred Scott (...)" (previous post)

Spotting where the violence, hypocrisy and deviousness are everyday weapons is a good way to identify the wrong side.

And, every single one of these pro-life state legislators have voted or will vote against state funding of programs that benefit children: education, nutrition,and health care. Once a child comes out of the womb, going from unborn to born, the pro-lifers could care less about the child.

Gosh . . . every single one of them. Not one is in favor of education, nutrition or health care. Not even one? When did you find the time to poll all the members of the Ark. legislature? Did you do this in writing or did you rely on statistical sampling done over the phone?

I know countless pro-lifers. They have raised, educated and fed their children. They have sat up all night with them when they were sick. They have done the same for the children of others. They coach Little League and they wait at the end of the sidewalk while their little one sells Girl Scout cookies at a stranger's house. They show up for parent/teacher meetings in droves and then sit around the kitchen table with their kids and help with algebra.

In both the churches to which we have belonged over the past thirty years they gave up weekend and evenings to provide shelter for homeless families -- including homeless children. (Three young women went straight from the delivery room to our shelter while I volunteered there -- we didn't ask their opinions on Roe.) Our church members spent long days in inner city schools tutoring the children of strangers and then cooked meals and took them to soup kitchens so other children of other strangers could go to bed well fed.

Are you positive you checked with the state of Arkansas? You seem to reside in the State of Hysteria.

So very christian, force the mother to have a child that for whatever reason she feels she cannot support and then was positively discriminate against the resulting child, calling the woman feckless and chiding her for not being able to live up to her responsibility.

Thank the gods that you people have no power in more civilized parts of the world.

You are being purposely dense. He didn't say pro-lifers in general he said "pro-life legislators".

In general (there are of course specific exceptions) conservative legislators are creating budgets and laws which:

1) Cut funding meant to benefit poor children such as medical programs and nutrition
2) Cut public education.

Their contributions to Little League and church don't count nearly as much as what they vote for in the state budgets and how state taxes are charged and allocated. Arkansas is not the only red-state that balances it's budget on the backs of the poor:

It's a matter of opinion. I think the voluntary efforts of millions of parents who regard their children, and the children of others, as a blessing and a heritage count for as least as much as a government bureaucrat in the Department of Motor Vehicles.

I find it impossible to comprehend, let alone defend the notion that what goes on in one person's belly could be another person's business.

Where do these people and states (e.g. Arkansastan) find the insolence to tell other people (I.E. women) when to procreate?
Such demand is worse than telling women to cover their faces, which has become to hallmark of modern bigotry.
Forcing a woman to give birth is not only unconstitutional, it's inhuman, and Arakansastan should be condemned by any human rights organization that respects women.

When I was in the Pakistani tribal areas close to the Tora Bora range, I found the Pashtun tribesmen to be extremely polite and hospitable people who liked their guns greased and loaded, their preachers learned and fiery, and their women silent and pregnant.

And, what about what goes on in a woman's breast? If her belly is her business then so is her breast cancer. So . . . why all the pink ribbons and marches? Why can't an ill woman just do what her ancestors did . . . go off into the woods and expire in quiet?

The reason this doesn't happen is that the rest of us have a sense of COMMUNITY. A sense, that is, that we are responsible not only FOR each other but TO each other. The woman with ovarian cancer, the woman with breast cancer the woman with . . . . well, you name it. She has, by virtue of being a human being (NOT by virtue of being a woman) a moral claim on the rest of us

And, we have a moral claim on HER. The prospective father, the prospective grandparents . . . those who would be the baby's family . . . the baby itself . . . all of these have a claim. The very future of the country . . . demography . . . is something that affects us all.

If woman's bellies are their problem then so are their tits. If they can kill in the first instance then they can die because of the second. But, the rest of us, unlike yourself, recognize a human obligation to relieve suffering and engage our common humanity. That is why we are opposed to killing unborn babies . . . those children of both humans and God that reside in the woman's sacred belly.

And, what about what goes on in a woman's breast? If her belly is her business then so is her breast cancer. So . . . why all the pink ribbons and marches? Why can't an ill woman just do what her ancestors did . . . go off into the woods and expire in quiet?

The reason this doesn't happen is that the rest of us have a sense of COMMUNITY. A sense, that is, that we are responsible not only FOR each other but TO each other. The woman with ovarian cancer, the woman with breast cancer the woman with . . . . well, you name it. She has, by virtue of being a human being (NOT by virtue of being a woman) a moral claim on the rest of us

And, we have a moral claim on HER. The prospective father, the prospective grandparents . . . those who would be the baby's family . . . the baby itself . . . all of these have a claim. The very future of the country . . . demography . . . is something that affects us all.

If woman's bellies are their problem then so are their tits. If they can kill in the first instance then they can die because of the second. But, the rest of us, unlike yourself, recognize a human obligation to relieve suffering and engage our common humanity. That is why we are opposed to killing unborn babies . . . those children of both humans and God that reside in the woman's sacred belly.

Children of both humans and god...........Big LOL. I would have been really surprised not to read the word god in your comments...........Once again Big LOL.
I do hope you know that there are some people who don't care at all about your god, keep him/her to yourself. Thank you

"The law, which passed on March 6th, bans abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy—the age by which an ultrasound can usually detect a fetal heartbeat—except to save the life of the mother and in pregnancies resulting from rape or incest."

This is not complete. A fetal heartbeat (and limbs) can be detected 5 weeks after gestation.

Your anti-enlightenment comment makes no sense. It is pro-lifers (well, pro-life up till birth anyway) that have made detectable heartbeat another in a series of unscientific and utterly meaningless criteria for getting emotional about a non-sentient foetus.

Divest yourself of religion and use logic, reason and empathy to make decisions. Not myths and superstition.

A significant part of the public is revulsed by Roe. They are determined to subvert it, chisel away at it and do anything they can to defang it.

This is no surprise. It has been this way since 1973. A patriarchy of nine old unelected white men meeting in secret (where's the outrage about THAT, ladies?) shoved this down the nation's throat. What did they expect the nation to do -- say "Thank you?"

From a political standpoint this issue all but keeps the GOP in business. It is like an albatross around the neck of the Democrats.

Until this issue is returned to the voters to decide it will continue to fester in the American body politic.

Another significant part of the public likes to have options, and doesn't want to have to break laws in the pursuit of their life.

I know people who have had abortions, and they live with the moral conflict, but simultaneously know it was the right decision.

Intentionally stigmatizing something that people do is social engineering, and it will not eliminate the behavior. It's why prohibition failed. It's why Roe v Wade came to be in the first place - people were dying in alleys with coathangers.

I'm not a Democrat, but I'm okay with abortions and it doesn't feel like an albatross to me. Quit attempting to limit individual freedoms already granted by the Supreme Court.

It would be interesting to see how long these laws would survive if Roe is gone. My reasoning is that Roe is a form of subsidy to these states: by providing a minimum for abortion, it subsidizes conflicting social policies that might have more trouble existing without that minimum. My reasoning depends on all the opinion polls which say abortion is favored by a significant margin and is favored more by women. (I'm not familiar with how those polls run in each and every state, but let's assume they run true in at least some of the anti-abortion states.) Without Roe, these states would be choosing policies not favored by most and not by most women. Given the number of abortions that occur despite this hostility, that suggests it's possible the victory over abortion wouldn't last. Maybe it would; abortion is not gay marriage because being gay is lifelong while abortion is an incident. But maybe having to compete in the actual marketplace for young women and young people in general would over time have an effect.

(Roe v Wade held that states can ban abortions only after the fetus is capable of surviving outside the mother, a point that varies but that the Supreme Court defined as being at “23 to 24 weeks” in 1992)

No, there's still a pretty fundamental hurdle of viability at around 24 weeks. Even then children born that prematurely are likely to be severely disabled, assuming they survive for any length of time at all.